


Saving the World

by galaxysoup



Series: Five Ways The World Was Made Right [4]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Children of Earth Fix-It, Dark, Gen, M/M, POV Minor Character, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-09
Updated: 2010-01-09
Packaged: 2017-11-03 23:09:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/387016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxysoup/pseuds/galaxysoup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mica Davies is five years old when her Uncle Ianto dies.</p><p> <span class="small">(This series does not need to be read in order, or even in its entirety.)</span></p>
            </blockquote>





	Saving the World

**Author's Note:**

> a. k. a. The One With Time Travel
> 
> Originally Posted to [Livejournal](http://galaxysoup.livejournal.com/13740.html).

Mica Davies is five years old when her Uncle Ianto dies. She cries, because her mother cries and because the adults all around her are frightened and she doesn't understand what is going on, but she does not cry for him. He hadn't visited often and she mostly only knows him from overhearing her parents talk.

The dark-haired lady takes her and David aside, after they've finished running from the soldiers and gone back home, and looks at them very seriously and tells them that their uncle was very brave and loved them very much and saved the world.

There's something about that phrase that changes something in Mica's head. She doesn't know much, because she's little and her mum says she doesn't pay attention, but she knows that people who save the world are special.

She misses her Uncle Ianto, then, even if she never really knew him at all.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Mica Davies is seven years old the first time she sneaks out of the house. She wakes up to loud bangs and bright lights, like fireworks, somewhere a few streets off. Mica's always wanted to see fireworks, so she tiptoes downstairs and climbs out the living room window because the bolt on the front door is too high up for her to reach.

She nearly makes it to the source of the excitement, close enough to hear that there are people shouting and it sounds like something's getting broken, when her father catches up with her. He yells and shakes her and tells her she can't watch television for a week and then hauls her home.

It's very quiet when David and Mica wake up the next morning. Mica's mother is sitting at the kitchen table holding a cup of tea very tightly. She doesn't talk to them or look at them when they walk in, and Mica starts to cry because she thinks it's her fault.

"Don't cry, sweetheart," Mica's mother says finally. She has them sit down at the table, and she explains to them that there are different people in charge of the government now and a lot of things might change, so they're going to have to stay home for a while. Just until everything settles.

David is excited, because he doesn't like going to school and as far as he's concerned this is an unexpected holiday. Mica doesn't say anything. She sees the way her mother's hands shake and her smile is brittle, and she knows that somehow everything just got worse.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Mica is nine years old when David turns their father in for being unpatriotic. They'd had an argument earlier in the day because David wanted to join the Youth Army with his friends and their father told him that fascists weren't allowed in his house and David could get out if he was going to be that kind of stupid. David leaves, slamming the door behind him, and Mica can tell by the looks on her parents' faces that they're scared. She isn't sure if it's for David or for themselves.

The police kick down the door half an hour later and drag Mica's father away for 'questioning'. Her mother cries and begs them not to and one of the policemen hits her in the face to shut her up. Mica doesn't say anything. She stands quietly on the stairs, out of everyone's way.

From her vantage point she can see David outside. He still looks angry, but there is an odd, sick edge to his expression that tells her he hasn't really thought this whole thing through well enough and is starting to realise that being thirteen and furious isn't really justification for having his father arrested.

The policemen load her father into the van. David goes with them. It's the last time Mica ever sees either of them.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Mica is eleven years old the first time she smuggles something through one of the city checkpoints. Her heart pounds so hard she's sure the guard will be able to take one look at her and tell she's up to something, but all her papers and bribes are in order and he doesn't detect anything when he pats her down, so he waves her through.

Her mother is furious and forbids her from ever being so foolish again, but they both know it's just for form's sake. Ever since the Teutonic Alliance and the Federated States of New America came to an uneasy truce, it's been harder than ever to get medical supplies. Most of the people her mother hides on their way out of the country are injured, often badly, and the items innocent little Mica is able to carry through the blockades are too valuable. She's good at using her size and her age against people.

Mica listens to what the people her mother hides say. They talk of government interrogations, of the search for alien insurgents, and the scary dark-haired woman with the gap in her teeth who got them out and on their way to safety. Most of them are headed for Australia because it's one of the few countries left with open borders and a reasonable government, but there are rumours that the Japanese Empire is expanding south and Australia's next on the list.

Mica listens to the prisoners talk and makes careful note of what they say. The scary woman with the gapped teeth strikes a chord with her - she vaguely remembers someone like that telling her that her uncle saved the world. Evidently, she's trying her best to follow his example.

Mica listens, and plans. The world definitely needs saving, and it seems appropriate that a Jones should do it.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Mica is thirteen the first time she's arrested. It's also the same day the gap-toothed woman gets caught and executed, although Mica doesn't find that out until later.

The police catch her trading canned food for information in the Restricted Sector. They haul her in for 'questioning', but she manages to convince them that she's looking for word of her brother and not digging for information about her uncle and his mysterious acquaintances. They smack her around a little and show her a picture of David's dead body. They laugh when she cries. 

The tears are fake, of course. Mica doesn't cry any more.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Mica never meets the Doctor. He stopped coming to Earth years ago.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Mica is fifteen when she meets Captain John Hart. He teleports into Mica's alley and totally blows her cover right as she's getting ready to crack into the government records facility that holds what's left of Torchwood's files. She manages to lose her pursuers with an under-over (first through the sewers, then over the rooftops), but Hart keeps up.

Mica pins him to the wall of the alley with a switchblade and demands he tell her what the fuck he's playing at and who the fuck he is. Hart asks her if she's Ianto Jones' niece and it's enough of a shock to hear her Uncle Ianto's name that she backs off and listens to what he has to say.

He can make it all right, he tells her. He can set everything the way it was and bring Uncle Ianto back.

Fuck off, she says.

Nice mouth, he responds. Your uncle was a right bitch too.

It's possibly the nicest thing anyone has said to her in a really long time, although she doesn't tell him that.

She listens as he explains that Uncle Ianto died of an alien virus that he's got an antidote to. All she needs to do is go back in time and give it to Uncle Ianto on the sly. If Uncle Ianto doesn't die, Captain Jack won't leave and the whole world won't go to shit.

Mica thinks this is overly simplistic and says so. And anyway, why doesn't Captain John just go back and do it himself?

Ever heard of the Time Agency? he asks. They exist to prevent stuff like this. They'd come down on me like a tonne of bricks and nothing would change. But you, you're Ianto's niece. There are instances - rare, but provable - of... _special_ family members spontaneously time-travelling to right a wrong. It's a loophole.

He slides a little device across the table towards her. It's got a little screen and some buttons and would strap snugly to her wrist. There's a capsule tucked against one side that she guesses is the antidote.

So, Mica, he says. I think it's about time for you to be special.

What's in it for you? She asks. Why do you care?

He looks away. Jack Harkness was never the same after your Uncle died, he says. She wants to call him on his bullshit, but there's something in his body language that tells her he isn't lying even if he isn't telling her the whole truth.

She picks up the wristband and looks at it. I'll do it, she says, on one condition. I'll save my Uncle Ianto if you save Toshiko Sato and Owen Harper.

She's managed to find out a pretty good deal about her Uncle Ianto's job over the years. It's amazing how many people actually know intimate details about top-secret organizations if you ask the right way.

He glares at her. Weren't you listening? We're not blood. The Time Agency will stop me.

I think you're smarter than them, Mica says calmly. She puts the wristband down. I barely even remember my Uncle Ianto, and I'm good at living in this world. Maybe I don't want to change it.

He scowls. Fine. Toshiko Sato and Owen Harper for Ianto Jones, you crazy bitch.

Mica smiles and takes the wristband back. I have one errand to run, she says, and then I'm ready to go.

She tracks Rhys Williams down in a junkie squat by the waterfront. He's high on something and from the look of him probably has been since Gwen Cooper died, but he's coherent enough to understand what she's offering. He tells her what she needs to know about Uncle Ianto's last few days. As she'd suspected, Captain John was being overly simplistic, but it's nothing she can't handle. She stocks up on a few supplies, and presses the button on the wristband.

Time travel is a lot more floaty and glowy than she'd suspected, and she lands a lot harder than she would have liked, but her aim is good. She's tucked up against the side of an abandoned warehouse, and she can hear voices from inside.

"...take the car down to those shops by the Wharf? We need some discs for these things. Should take about 20 minutes."

Mica doesn't recognize the voice - it's a man's, musical and resonant - but it's definitely Rhys Williams who answers him.

"I'll go later, the beans are almost - "

Mica flips the breaker.

" - done - oh. I think we just lost power. All right, then - discs, you said?"

Mica waits a few minutes after Williams' footsteps have faded away, then sneaks in. Uncle Ianto and a dark-haired man who must be Captain Jack are - ew, gross, _distracted_ \- and it only takes a moment to switch out the clip on Uncle Ianto's gun for one loaded with armour-piercing rounds capable of cracking - random example - an airtight bullet-proof holding tank. The bullets won't technically be invented for another eight years, but even if Uncle Ianto notices the weight difference, they mostly look contemporary.

Mica sneaks back outside and waits for them to exit the building. She lets them get a few streets away, then ducks down the alley and comes out onto the street.

Uncle Ianto barely glances twice at the girl who bumps into him, and he's too intent on his destination to think about the slight sting he'd felt against his side.

Mica pockets the antidote capsule, and goes home.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Mica Davies is seventeen years old. She lives in the estates with her parents, but she spends a lot of time with her uncle and his boyfriend in Cardiff. Okay, really she spends a lot of time waiting in Uncle Ianto's flat for them to get home from one of their mysterious 'business trips', but her parents don't need to know that. They would just assume she's meeting a boyfriend on the sly.

The truth is Mica just likes being in Uncle Ianto's flat, even if he's not there. She likes to look at the carefully cropped pictures and the people in them, and give them names and stories in her head.

(This is Jack and Uncle Ianto after meeting aliens. This is Tosh and Owen after killing aliens. This is Gwen and Rhys after being abducted by aliens.)

Mica's met the people in the pictures, though mostly only in passing. She knows they work with her Uncle Ianto. She's totally not supposed to know they have a secret base under Roald Dahl Plass, but she does and when Gwen and Rhys' son turns sixteen, she's going to tell him too. It only seems fair.

(Their son's name is John. Mica is pretty certain they don't know why.)

Someday she may tell them all about travelling through time, rewriting history, and saving the world, but for now she's content to sit back and wait for the right time. Of course, this is Torchwood; the whole story will probably come out at absolutely the least helpful moment, but she's pretty sure she can handle it when it does.

Mica Davies is seventeen years old, and she saved the world. She can handle most things.


End file.
